the long road to myself
Getting lost is just part of finding the version of yourself that’s worth knowing.
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Dusk crept in, stretching its fingers across the horizon as I sat in my car.
A fortress of metal and glass.
Daylight bled into twilight, reflecting my own surrender to the brutal truth that had crashed into my life. Shadows twisted outside, turning the ordinary into something darker, a maze I couldn’t escape.
Fitting, really.
My life was just as twisted now.
That car used to mean freedom. Adventures. Open roads.
Now, it felt more like a cage—metal walls trapping me, keeping me moving but never getting me anywhere. The rearview mirror taunted me, flashing the life I’d left behind like a cruel rerun I couldn’t turn off.
Every mile stretched the distance between who I was and the person I’d lost. Each road led me further from the love, the home, the life that no longer belonged to me.
As I drove through the sprawling city, my thoughts kept looping back to the mess of lies and betrayal that had tainted everything after the divorce.
The memory played in my head like some twisted, slow-motion horror show.
Outside, the neon lights reflected off the windshield, throwing broken patterns of color that looked as fractured as I felt.
The car had become my cage. Cold. And Empty.
Alone with the constant replay of her lies, her cheating, and the crushing loneliness sitting next to me like an unwanted passenger.
Every red light I hit felt like a sick metaphor for my life.
I was stuck at a crossroads.
Do I sit here in the wreckage, feeling sorry for myself?
Or do I take the harder road, the one where I pick up the pieces and figure out who I am without all this pain dragging me down?
The city buzzed around me, full of life.
Busy streets. People with somewhere to go.
All of it an ironic backdrop to the loneliness that had become my only real companion. And as the lights blurred past, one harsh truth hit me…
My old life was gone. Shattered beyond repair. All I had now were broken memories and an uncertain future that I wasn’t sure how to face.
And yet, in all that darkness, there was a flicker of hope.
Maybe the end wasn’t just an end.
Maybe it was the start of something deeper—a path toward figuring out who I really was. The ruins of what had been was painful, yes.
But they were also a foundation.
Something to build on. Maybe even a stronger version of myself.
As I picked through the rubble of my past, it became clear…
The pain I was drowning in didn’t start here.
Those seeds were planted a long time ago, buried deep in the messy soil of my childhood. Growing up in a house where love felt like a foreign language, I learned early how to armor up. How to stand on my own, even in a room full of people.
Home should have been my refuge.
But It wasn’t.
It was a battlefield, where I wrestled with rejection, loneliness, and the slow ache of abandonment. Those old wounds didn’t heal.
They festered.
And now, here they were, making themselves known in the worst ways—bleeding out into every part of my adult life.
The collapse of my marriage, the lies, the betrayal—it all felt like déjà vu.
Old wounds, dressed in new clothes.
That deep fear of abandonment, the one hiding in the corners of my heart, was dragged into the spotlight the moment my wife walked out.
And the next relationship was a twisted reflection of my childhood. The manipulation, the deceit all hit a little too close to home.
It started to click.
The pain I’d been carrying wasn’t just from now—it had roots.
Deep ones.
I was drawn to people who reflected the chaos I grew up with. My wife leaving was my father’s rejection all over again. The mind games with my next partner reflected a nasty replay of the emotional distance I’d felt from my mother.
Sitting in that cold car, I had a moment of sharp clarity.
Everything made sense in the worst way.
The mess of my life wasn’t random—it was a tangled thread leading back to the past. Betrayal, rejection, manipulation—they’d been there from the start, woven into my story long before I knew what they meant.
The sting of that realization was sharp. And terrifying.
But oddly freeing.
Terrifying because it meant digging up demons I’d buried deep. Liberating because it showed me the way out. To finally escape the cycle of pain, I’d have to go back—to the heart of my childhood trauma, to the wounds I’d tried so hard to ignore.
Healing wasn’t about running from the past anymore.
No, it was about turning around, locking eyes with those shadows, and facing them head-on. I needed to recognize how those old scars had shaped my life, twisted my relationships, and—most importantly—take real steps to heal them.
This was the truth.
A harsh, unavoidable truth.
Those traffic lights weren’t just signaling the road—they were pointing me to a choice. I could keep spiraling, trapped in my past. Or I could confront the hurt, heal the broken parts, and step into something new.
The road ahead was steep. Foggy. And scary.
But with every step, I knew I’d get closer to the peace and freedom I’d been chasing for so long.
As daylight faded into the grip of night, I stood at the edge, ready for the journey ahead. No more running. No more hiding from the past.
It was time to face it head-on and hold tight to the truth, no matter how much it stung.
That truth was brutal. But necessary.
It cut deep, exposing the raw reality I’d avoided for so long.
Yet, in that pain, I found the first step toward healing.
It was the beginning of something new—a chance to face those scars, to mend the breaks, and reclaim the peace that had slipped through my fingers.
This wasn’t just a new chapter.
This was a rebirth.
The start of becoming someone more, someone who didn’t just weather the storm but walked out stronger.
My renaissance. My rise from the wreckage of a past too heavy to carry.
And there I stood, ready.
Ready to heal. Ready to grow. Ready to fly.
—Ryan Puusaari
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P.P.S. "Every mile away from who you were is another step toward who you could be—if you’re willing to face what you’ve buried."
Healing Thoughts — A Journey of Reflection, Poetry, and Healing, Made Possible by You
Healing Thoughts isn’t just another book—it’s a living, breathing collection of reflections, inspiring quotes, and poetry, all pulled from the heart of this community.
Through the highs and lows, the moments of growth and vulnerability, your support made this book a reality.
Each page is a step toward healing, filled with wisdom, introspection, and emotional insight to guide you on your personal journey.
This book is more than just words—it’s our story.
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